The Etheree

[ariestess]

Today, I thought I'd introduce you to another of my favorite poem forms, the etheree.

And I will just say this now: Sometimes, when I'm not paying attention, I'll call this the Etheridge poem, because of the similarity of the names. Crazy, I know, but there you go. *g*

The basic format is a 10-line poem with increasing syllables [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. You can also do these in reverse [10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1], or do a longer poem of multiple stanzas of the etheree, even alternating the forward and reverse versions.

I've only written one so far, so I don't know that any sort of rhyming will work for this format, but give it a shot if you want!


"present"

bow
askew,
torn paper
litters the floor.
forgotten so soon,
left like so much rubbish.
no one cares how long it took
to find the perfect paper shell.
they strip it away in a mad rush
to reveal the treasure hidden within.

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Comments

[alee_grrl]

What a fun and fascinating form. Thank you for sharing it.

I love the example poem you post. As untonuggan points out the multiple meanings of bow add some neat layers to the reading. I love how it unfolds visually much like the unwrapping of a present.

[ariestess]

Thank you! I want to write more of this particular form, and was actually surprised to see that I'd only done the one. Perhaps I'll make this the form for my next free poem day next month...